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Partly, he says, it's about student privacy. But it's also about setting a learning context for paying students, meaning what they see and how their education is structured. If instructors don't control that context, he says, "they're in some sense abdicating their responsibilities to their own students."

Mr. Downes, who writes a well-known education technology blog called OLDaily, permits students to create private groups if they like. But that isn't the default position. He also argues that closed classes provide a lot of latitude for misbehavior, such as prejudice or acting inappropriately toward women. "People say, 'Well I'm a lot more comfortable in private,'" he says. "I sometimes think of that as meaning, 'I'm a lot more comfortable being a jerk in private.'"

distance educators also question how well the open-teaching model, which has been limited mostly to educational-technology courses, would apply to more-traditional subjects that may require more guidance for students.

At the end of the day, the popularity of open classes will depend on whether learning-management software companies like Blackboard make it easy to publish open versions of online courses,

GoingOn Networks' social learning platform allows designers to open up specific areas of the course site to public audiences or restrict other areas of the site to enrolled users. Penn tested the MOOC concept and the technology with a course in Global Environmental Sustainability in 2009. You can view it at https://pennlpscommons.org/.

There are certain foundational skills necessary for learning in an open online environment. Early research indicates the need for learners to practice digital responsibility (including management of personal privacy and respectful behavior), digital literacy (ability to find and vet resources as well as differentiate between valid and questionable resources), organization of online content, collaborating and socializing with subject matter experts and fellow students, and the ability to use online applications to synthesis content and create learning artifacts.

My biggest concern with this model is this: how can we effectively teach research and writing in a "MOOC"? That is, how can teachers provide consistent, reliable and useful feedback to so many students?

There is no doubt a size limit on effective tribal size. Larger numbers of people interacting around an issue tend to clump into clans of 3-12 students when working on a medium sized project or issue. I'd be interested to hear about what social structures emerge among active participants.

I really believe there is a distinction between open teaching and open learning. As a teacher, I could conduct my course in a completely closed environment, but offer my course materials in an open forum that anyone can freely access. Is that open or merely transparent? You begin to see a continnum emerging here. On the other hand, as a highly motivated learner, I could piece together a rich learning experience with open courseware in the absence of a teacher or facilitator. Though at some point, I may have to connect with other learners or subject matter experts who can supplement the materials.

My real issue is the lack of a feedback loop. I'm sure you have learning objectives and some of the students do graded assignments, but the rest is just unknowing wishful thinking.

Chedept wrote "At a minimum, learning is about demonstrated knowledge or skills."Really? So if you have no one to whom to demonstrate knowledge or skills, are you unlearned? Learning need not have such boundaries. Parents of pre-school-aged children see unbounded learning for the joy of discovery every single day.

Open courses may not be practical for all situations (I highly doubt any pedagogical model is the answer to all questions). Some courses require high levels of direct instruction or lab settings.

instead of the instructor being the sole source of guidance and information, she becomes a node among other nodes (important, even critical, but no longer the only or dominant one) in a learning network

I think it is important to remember the number of students that actively participate in the 'course' until completion. In the case of the 'MOOC' considered here, 2300 students enrolled, and less that 10% actively participated. While enrolment might be considered large, participation and contribution is much smaller. Another of these courses started with about 90 enrolled, and finished with about 8 participating. I considered this to be more of a TOOC = tiny online open course, than a MOOC.

I like the comments differentiating "open teaching" from "open learning". I recently gave a talk about the latter, leveraging social networking tools to create a global learning community: http://bit.ly/mmo-learning